through the trapdoor
by ipsa dixit
Summary: they both feared the worst, and the worst did happen./for ned


_for ned, via gge. also, happy late birthday :p_

 _thanks to ana and victoria for betaing!_

 _prompts at the bottom_

 _1016 words, by google docs_

* * *

George knows that he should feel sad. He _does_ feel sad, but it's overwhelmed by a numbness. He doesn't feel like he _can_ feel sad.

He feels guilty for that.

He's also sick of his family. They keep on swarming him, looking at him as if he might break at any second. _Yes_ , Fred was his twin. _Yes_ , it tears him up inside to think of Fred. _Yes_ , he's slightly broken from what happen, but they knew it could happen. They'd both left their flat before the war, knowing full well that they might not come back alive. _It was war._

Fred even made them say goodbye. They both feared the worst, and the worst _did_ happen.

 _(Fred was always oddly good at Divination.)_

George is _fine_. Well, he's not fine, but he doesn't need his family looking at him as if he's a piece of glass, so when Harry comes home while they're having dinner, needing volunteers to help clean up Hogwarts, George writes his name down.

"Are you sure, dear?" his mother asks, giving him _that_ look again. If she keeps on looking at him like he might break, maybe he'll snap and _will_ break.

 _("Who is she to tell what you want to do, Georgie?" Fred would be asking.)_

"Hogwarts needs help, Mum," George says, putting some food into his mouth. "I want to help."

"Yes, but are you sure you're okay to help?" His mum gives him a concerned look and it takes all his willpower to not roll his eyes. She's being ridiculous, in his opinion.

"Mum. I'm fine." Okay, so George isn't _entirely_ fine, but he's going to be fine cleaning up Hogwarts—it's not like he's going to stumble across Fred's dead body and start breaking down.

 _(What scares him is that he's not sure if he_ will _break down, even he_ does _find Fred's dead body.)_

"Okay," his mother says. She looks at him worriedly, before piling some more food onto his plate.

"Please, Mum. I don't need more. I'm up to my eyes already!" George tells her. His mother gives a little smile to him.

 _(If Fred was there, he'd eat all of George's leftovers. He always had a much bigger appetite than George.)_

…

George is assigned to the third floor corridor and he almost laughs, but he stops himself.

The third floor corridor.

 _(Fred had thoroughly told George off for not wanting to go and explore it, especially after_ Ron _explored it before them.)_

The trapdoor is still there, which makes George's chest hurt. Ron's told him about the trapdoor—it leads to where Dumbledore hid the Philosopher's Stone. There's supposedly all sorts of puzzles throughout it. George notices that there was no three-headed dog like Ron said.

George knows that it's probably out of order by now, but it's one of the only places in Hogwarts he _hasn't_ been, so he opens up the trapdoor and climbs down on the small ladder.

 _(Fred would_ kill _him if he didn't go through.)_

His foot hits something soft at the bottom and George cringes. Pulling out his wand, he lights it with a silent " _Lumos_ ". Something hisses as his wand lights up, and George can see Devil's Snare, lining the entire ground.

"That's not creepy," George notes. He keeps his wand lit as he makes his way across the now-visible floor—even he remembers the little jingle about Devil's Snare hating light from first year.

He walks through the other door to a fluttering of wings. He looks up to see tons of tiny little creatures. They're long and metal-looking, almost like… keys? He has no idea what they're supposed to be, but the door on the other side is already open, so he walks on.

The next room also has an open door, with a checkered floor. It's not until George sees the crumbled pieces of marble that he realises—this is a giant chess board.

 _(Fred would've cracked a joke, right then and there, about Ron probably being the one to solve that puzzle. Ronniekins was always a huge chess nerd.)_

George kicks aside someone marble pieces as he walks towards the next door—he's _sort of_ still doing his job and cleaning up, right?

The next room almost makes George throw up. An awful, rotting smell engulfs his nostrils and his eyes water. He blinks away the tears while bringing his shirt up to his nose and looks ahead. He sees some sort of giant carcass lying there, slowly rotting away. He doesn't know what it belonged to, and he's not sure he _wants_ to know.

He marches forward.

The next room has a simple table in the middle. There are bits of broken glass on it. Looking down, George can also see shards all around the floor. He steps around them as he heads into, yet another, open door.

This room seems to be the last room. It's big and circular, and George can't see any other door on the other side. A huge mirror stands in the front, drawing George towards it.

He takes a deep breath before looking into it. This is going to be the big magical moment, right? He looks up, prepared to see something amazing.

His reflection stares back at him.

"What?" George asks aloud. He raises his wand and siphons off some of the dust with a wave of it. Maybe if it was cleaner…

Still, when he cleans it so it's gleaming, all George can see is his reflection.

There's an inscription on the arc of the mirror, reading ' _Erised_ _stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi'._ George has no idea what it says. It looks like Latin, but he's never spoken a word of it.

It's just a normal mirror.

It looks like a normal mirror, but George is in a _magical_ school. It should have some magical properties. Frustrated, George turns around, leaving the mirror. He has a school to clean up.

 _(Maybe he forgot, maybe he didn't see it, maybe he ignored it, but George didn't notice one thing about his reflection._

 _It had two ears.)_

* * *

 _for:_

 _training camp [whining warriors, chaser two, write about george, "who is she?", ridiculous, "i'm up to my eyes!"]_

 _insane house comp [george]_

 _gge [ned - fred and george, angst]_

 _the golden snitch, through the universe [fred and george weasley]_


End file.
